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Budapest to Krakow overnight in own sleeper

Posted by on

Hi all,

My partner (female) and I (male) are looking at taking the overnight train from Budapest to Krakow in late September.

Using the Hungarian Rail website, there's definitely a service on that date. However, when I select "own compartment" it says no service available. It works fine without "own compartment" selected but we don't want to be split up for the night into separate male/female compartments. I've tried different dates, including much closer ones, and nothing seems to work.

If I select 3 people the "own compartment" option works fine. I'm happy (enough) to spend the extra money buying a ticket that won't be used, to ensure we get our own compartment. Is this a bad idea? Or could it just be the website playing up right now? I'm sure it's worked in the past fine.

Posted by
16893 posts

The Man in Seat 61 has this suggestion and I confirmed that the Polrail site is offering double sleepers.

If booking online at mavcsoport doesn't work - it sometimes doesn't, either because the cheap fares are sold out or because MAV staff have forgotten to load the necessary data - either pick up the phone and book that way - although you'll only get full-flex tickets this way, not the cheapies as those are only sold direct by MAV or use reliable Polish agency www.polrail.com and pay for tickets to be sent to you. 

Posted by
14510 posts

A very interesting and enlightening article as it refers the future of services offered by MAV. If it should come to pass that MAV ends the sleeper car option on its night train between Munich and Budapest, a night route which I've yet to take in its entirety, does it automatically follow that MAV will abolish night service between Budapest and Munich? Hopefully not.

The article omits mentioning ÕBB's night route between Munich and Budapest on the EN train. It's a real pity that sleeper car service as an option will be abolished (for those wanting that, I don't), but as long as night service is in existence, ie sitting in the general seating area, I'm still in business in taking night train routes, such as those offered by EN.

Posted by
17927 posts

If you are looking for old world elegance, not much left. There is the Danube Express, The South African Blue Train, the VSOE in Europe and Peru and maybe a hand full of others. Figure $1000 to $3000 pet journey day. The Hungarian rail system runs some special trains at reasonable rates, but mostly short haul of 4 hours or less. Then there are several short and medium haul special trains in the UK, but $$$$

Posted by
8145 posts

Some of the trains out of Budapest are not modern and very slow. We didn't find their train service to be very pleasurable. I would tell you to fly there but only Wizz Air flies Budapest to Poland and then it's to Warsaw.

Posted by
17927 posts

It's why I have yet to get yo Kracow. If I did want to go I think I would either put it first on the trip or last so I could use the international trip to take half the pain outnof it. Between Budapest and Kracow I would add a 2 to 3 day tour of Slovakia. There is another current post about how beautiful Slovakia is, and I agree with it.

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